Second-tier universities make case for funding

The Australian Technology Network of universities has appealed to the federal government to consider the contribution to economic development of up-and-coming universities when it allocates research funding.

The results of the “Excellence in Research for Australia" assessment exercise highlighted the dominance of the older Group of Eight universities, fuelling concern they would take the lion’s share of $122 million in performance-based funding in 2011.

Defending their position, the ATN universities – Curtin, RMIT, the University of Technology, Sydney, Queensland University of Technology and the University of South Australia – have compiled a ranking based on the number of research concentrations institutions have which are performing at world-class standard or above.

The ATN universities were in a second stream, below the Go8, alongside the universities of Tasmania, Newcastle, Wollongong and Western Sydney, and Griffith, Macquarie, La Trobe, Deakin, James Cook, Flinders and Murdoch.

The chair of the ATN’s deputy vice-chancellor research group,
Caroline McMillen
, said the second band represented younger “challenger" universities that had greater capacity to grow research concentrations and their world-class credentials.

“What defines them is they often have a good number and a growing number of research areas," Professor McMillen said. “These institutions have the capacity to grow because they are young institutions.

“We can’t afford to just simply keep investing in institutions whose only opportunity will be to grow up one more rank in a league table. We need to take the power of that second group and make sure there is investment in those ones coming through because that’s what’s going to keep building the capacity and give you regional powerhouses for economic development."

Professor McMillen said there was a third band of 10 universities in which there was some research activity and the government should consider funding them. A bottom band comprising CQUniversity, the universities of Ballarat, Southern Queensland, the Sunshine Coast, Notre Dame, Batchelor Institute and Melbourne College of Divinity, had “no presence yet" in the research landscape, Professor McMillen said.

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UTS vice-chancellor
Ross Milbourne
said ATN universities were “punching well above their weight" in terms of their age, which was between 18 and 24 years. In comparison, the University of Melbourne, which ranked highest in the ATN’s calculations, was founded 157 years ago. The universities of Queensland, Sydney and Adelaide were also centenarians.

“The concern is that the federal government will come up with funding formulas heavily driven by historical advantage and not by the research growth potential that exists in certain institutions, and it’s important that be taken account of," Professor Milbourne said.